Allegresse Postillons

Georg Philipp Telemann
Musique de Table, Troisième Production
Ouverture-Suite in Bb TWV 55:B1 (excerpts);
Conclusion in Bb TWV 50:10
Wiesbaden Collegium Musicum,
Edmund Weyns
recorded: 15 October 1936 & 23 March 1939, Berlin
Telefunken A 2128, A 2905-2907

A couple of days ago, the ‘collection’ notched up 150 uploads, with a transfer I’m especially chuffed with: the first substantial issue (on four 25 cm discs) of music by Telemann, also the first of his suites on record. Not quite complete, though: the Suite’s sixth movement, Badinage, was dropped in favour of the orchestral Conclusion (there’s one rounding off each ‘Production’ of Musique de Table) – I suspect, for the sake of a more up-tempo, finale-like ending than the Suite’s own closing Menuet.

To my ears, the Suite is beautifully played by the Wiesbaden Collegium Musicum under violinist Edmund Weyns – whose group made quite a few pioneering 78s of Baroque (and some Classical) music. I don’t know why they recorded just two movements of the Suite in 1936 (issued on A 2128) and only followed up with the rest (on A 2905-07) in 1939 – testing the commercial waters, maybe? In the meantime, the Wiesbadeners had also recorded the Trio in e from the second ‘Production’ (Telefunken E 2256) – that has also been transferred and I hope to upload it soon.

You’ll find the Suite here – I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

My warmest thanks to engineer and wizard Andrew Hallifax for his work on this and all the uploads I’ve been able to post this year – and some I haven’t yet, as I’ve been very engrossed in a research & transfer project I started last December. I thought it would take a few weeks at most… More on that this month, if I can get it finished!

In the meantime, do check out the sixty-odd items I have managed to upload. My own favourites include pianist Vera Franceschi’s lovely discs of Cimarosa, Galuppi and Alessandro Scarlatti; baritone Yvon Le Marc’hadour singing lute songs with his future wife Maroussia Orloff, and Erlebach, Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann, with my hero Claude Crussard; the Zika Quartet in Dvořák and a piece by Richard Zika himself; the Brosa Quartet in Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn, Ambroise Thomas and Frank Bridge (and there’s more of the Brosa to come); T.B. Lawrence’s London Madrigal Group; Mischa Elzon playing a bravely abridged Franck Sonata; Boris Schwarz and colleagues from the Berlin Philharmonic in Mozart, and the Fehse Quartet in Beethoven, both on Clangor; conductor Georges Tzipine as a young violinist, with his cellist brother, playing Marchand – Luc, not Louis – and others; the early-music group Spieleinung Berlin in Renaissance consort dances; Clérambault and Couperin played, improbably, on a Mustel organ-celesta!; the Quartetto di Roma in Respighified early music, Malipiero and more Dvořák; and, one for my good friend Jon, Renée Chemet sparkling in Mozart via Kreisler.

Finally, thanks too to the experts who have kindly shared information I needed for these uploads, not least Dr. Martin Elste, Jolyon Hudson, David Mason, Tully Potter, Robert Tifft and Glen Wilson.

And apologies to Jonathan Keates...

Happy New Year!